The Photo a Day Challenge

[Marko]

And he did. The machine gun group portrait instantly relaxed them into warm smiles. Bingo.

He can also set it to bracket one stop each for five frames. Lets him play with HDR portraits, which are really interesting.

Machine-gunning is also very useful as a cheap IS of sort - if you take a burst instead of a single click while handholding with a slow shutter speed, you improve your chances of getting at least one sharp frame several-fold.

Not to mention all the funny comments you get from old-timers and luddittes...

[mike rosenlof]

I did a self-portrait a day series for my 40th year. That was a while back (ended in '99). It was really good to have me thinking about trying to be creative with a photo of the "same old subject" every day. I missed a few days, but not many. I intended the final presentation to be 6x6 (yeah, medium format) films contact printed. It really was one photo per day. I dedicated a Mamiya TLR body to that project.

I tried to maintain a series for the year 2000, but failed at that one. I didn't have a clear/strong/simple enough theme. Maybe simple is the key.

[cdholden]

Could you take a photo every day next year?

I think it would be a worthwhile challenge.

[....]

Let me know if you're in.

Rob Skeoch
www.thepicturedesk.ca

Rob,
I'm in! Don't look for me to be scanning and posting. It's just something I'm doing for fun. I recently found my Yashica 124G that I thought was lost when we moved about 6 months ago, so I'm using this as an excuse to catch up on using it. It's like getting a free camera! I've got a few dozen rolls of Rollei Pan 25 (from when the birch wood boxes first came out) left that are anxiously waiting Jan 1. Even if it doesn't improve my composition, it will be a nice daily distraction from work.
Good luck with your shot of the day and have a Happy New Year.
Chris

[tgtaylor]

Saint Ansel (Pope John Paul or Benedict did cannonize him, didn't he?), who probably has more "keepers" than most - if not all - photographers living or dead, once wrote "If you get one good one a month, you're doing good!"

Unless you're shooting the same subject each day like Richard Misrach's Golden Gate series or doing general street photography, finding a suitable artistic subject matter every day is extremely difficult. For example, yesterday afternoon I found an appealing landscape but as soon as the sun started to shine upon it from the clouds, dense fog rolled in and I was thwarted. Today was completely overcast with rain. But I may have a three hour window tomorrow morning (:

[Bruce Barlow]

8000 exposures in a week would be about 32 rolls of 35mm per day. I know some sports and wedding shooters who used to burn at least twice that many on an average assignment. Some years ago while they still shot film, that is.

Figure $10-$15 per roll of processed E6, depending on the lab and location, the experience would cost him bewtween $2200 and $3300 if he were shooting film. That's not counting the cost of camera and scanning.

This way, he got it for free, in the computer, available for instant preview. No wonder he's been able to improve so rapidly.

Precisely. I started to figure out the cost (and time!) in 8x10 HP5 and got a headache.

It occurs to me that he doesn't need "the decisive moment," and just needs to "be there." The cost consideration negates the testosterone I have always associated with "the moment."

Good thing I'm still mostly using film so I can prove my manhood.

On the other hand, I admire his passion in becoming better.

More relevant to this thread: as Mr. Bowen knows, I have wonderful pictures pointing out my office window. I had thought about "one-an-hour" from dawn to dusk just to see how the light changes during the day. Less ambitious, but still useful, I think. 5x7 because I love the format. I need a sunny day.

[John Bowen]

More relevant to this thread: as Mr. Bowen knows, I have wonderful pictures pointing out my office window. I had thought about "one-an-hour" from dawn to dusk just to see how the light changes during the day. Less ambitious, but still useful, I think. 5x7 because I love the format. I need a sunny day.

Bruce,

Why do you need a sunny day? I think you would have beautiful photographs out your office window on a rainy day.

I think your office window would make an excellent subject for an "every day at 6:30am" project. Dedicate a tripod and camera to the project, make an exposure everyday at say, 6:30am (maybe Moses will do this for you....that's Bruce's Grey Parrot). Hell, you could use some damn digital camera for it, but at the end of the year I'll bet you have a wonderful series of photographs detailing the changing sun angles and changing seasons. Think about it.

[madmax12]

I am in to do this . I am new to LF and this would kick me hard to shoot . Lokk forward to the images.

[Bruce Barlow]

Bruce,

Why do you need a sunny day? I think you would have beautiful photographs out your office window on a rainy day.

I think your office window would make an excellent subject for an "every day at 6:30am" project. Dedicate a tripod and camera to the project, make an exposure everyday at say, 6:30am (maybe Moses will do this for you....that's Bruce's Grey Parrot). Hell, you could use some damn digital camera for it, but at the end of the year I'll bet you have a wonderful series of photographs detailing the changing sun angles and changing seasons. Think about it.

I want to see the more dramatic changes to the light in sunlight. Overcast would be too similar, although, as I preach, I should try it.

I'm less interested in the same-time-each-day, I guess.

Cheers!

[Alan Butcher]

Throughout the book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.

Doing the photo a day challenge will add to your hours needed for success.

Whatever the weather there is always something to photograph, maybe this will get me to do some still life images that I have been meaning to take for a couple of years, I can also photograph in the barn, photograph outside in the rain or snow. I do not find subject matter to be an issue if I spend time outdoors on the farm.

I am going to do the photo a day, and on some days many more.

--
Alan

[SteveKarr]

Awa ... don't let the clouds get in the way... It was actually cloudy (and cold) here in Phoenix so I did a shot inside...


Here's my photo of the day for yesterday. I'm 4 days for four. I do need a little help in a web site thou ... anybody got a cool template?

... This is a bad Idea after all ... I'm down 15 sheets of X Ray film & 4-6 hours of my life. The $2.25 in film & processing really could have been better used in a SLOW photo assistant's cash flow ...
but I have 4 images ... two are actually pretty good.

I think my Today models (my arty neighbor kids) are going to stiff me ... so maybe I'll take a still life of my Cowboy boots!